Resurrection Blues
by Jack Hawksmoor
Summary: An 'after the movie' spooky, angsty adventure
1. Chapter 1

Resurrection Blues

Ch 1

**Author's note: The first paragraph describes a scene taken right from the movie.**

_(Creedy was dead. For a moment, just a moment, the urge to crumple at his feet, to just lay down and die was so strong he couldn't move. He couldn't think. Every scrap of energy he had was focused on keeping his feet. The chest plate was so heavy. Peeling it off was like removing a layer of skin. The light was crawling over the walls, as if something terrible and wonderful was trying to break free of its chains. He tried to ignore it, his fingers fumbling with straps. Around him, the walls flexed and swelled, breathing like some giant, monstrous creature...)_

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Evey Hammond had blood under her fingernails. She had dirt on her face and a furious joy buzzing in her ears.

Breathless and smothering a smile, she pulled the door open and poked her head out into the street.

A couple, laughing, walking away from her. About a block away. The girl was wearing a cape, the boy had his draped over one arm.

Across the street, there was a bald man smoking. Smoking, on the street!

In plain view of everyone, the man blew gray smoke into the air. Then he looked her right in the eye and grinned as if challenging her to say something. She couldn't imagine where he'd even gotten the cigarettes, they must have cost a fortune. There hadn't been even poor tobacco available, not for years and years...

She pulled her head back inside.

"You'll have to wear it," she said, trying not to laugh. "There's people about."

Finch sighed, looking very tired, but did as she bid him. A moment later he was just another reveler venturing out after curfew in a Guy Fawkes mask.

"I don't know when it will be safe to meet again," He said, voice muffled. It didn't upset her. It was still Finch's voice, Finch's slumping shoulders under the cape.

"I'm sure I'll manage," she said sweetly, firmly.

She ushered Finch to the door like a lover, handed him onto the street. Handed him over to London, much like V had done with her, that first night. As she locked the door she was lifted with a warm surge of memory. Returned home safe...The tenderness that welled up caught her off guard, left her suddenly struck dumb and fighting tears.

She turned from the door and went down, down and in, through lifts and tunnels until she found herself standing in front of the Wurlitzer without any thought of getting there. She stared at it blindly for a few moments before the shape of it registered. Evey looked around with a start to find herself in the exact spot she'd been in five days ago, when she'd returned to him.

For a sick, shivery moment she was sure she'd gone back somehow, and that any moment he would walk slowly out of her old room to greet her.

"I...didn't think you'd come..."

She hissed in a breath and spun around, her heart high in her throat.

Please, oh-

Nothing. Empty.

She leaned slowly back against the frame of the machine, as if an impossibly huge hand was pushing her back.

Alone in the empty ruins of V's possessions she let out a small sound of despair. It resembled nothing more than a small child's smothered cry. She pressed her hands to her face as if to hold in any other treacherous noises. Suddenly weary at the lonely sound of her own echo, she took a hand from her mouth and leaned back more heavily against the jukebox. It propped her up without complaint, a second spine at her back.

Her thumb hit a button, and the machine started to hum and click while she silently lamented the absence of a friend. After a few moments something sweet and sad filled the gallery. V had seemed to be fond of that one...

Evey saw it clearly in her mind's eye, how V had often lingered over the selection.

"Ah," he said, pleased, " here we are." She heard the warmth in his voice as if he was leaning over her shoulder, and she jumped, craning her neck to look around her.

No. No, it was just madness...

The lights were flickering. The music echoed softly as she cried... and the lights were flickering.

She looked up, shivering at the sudden chill in the air. In all the time she'd been there, she had never seen anything in poor repair, nothing that V possessed in anything but perfect working order. Oblivious to her surprise, the light over her head failed completely.

With a sharp wrench of anguish she wondered if the gallery knew he was gone.

Then she looked down, and he was standing there. Evey jumped like someone had jabbed her fingers into a socket.

She choked, reeling back, stumbling against the Wurlitzer. She caught herself by her fingernails, almost crashing onto the floor.

He was coming towards her, roaring at her with a rumble and a sudden fierce wind that whipped her in the face and had her thinking wildly that he hadn't gotten himself off the train at all, no, he'd brought it with him, growling at his heels like a rabid dog.

He flickered like a candle, darkness whipping around him and then dancing away again. Black curtains gone mad in a high wind. The air felt like cement in her mouth and she realized she couldn't breathe.

"V," she gasped with a huge intake of air and half-doubled over, booted in the stomach at the sight of him.

From the moment she set eyes on him she knew it was V. The certainty clenched around her spine, breaking bone. The whole world waited as he approached her. She knew exactly where he would step, knew how his body would move as well as if it was she who'd done the walking. It was heart-poundingly familiar. The air thickened, rippling and straining at the light. The edges of everything sharpened until it hurt to look. She almost wanted to scratch at her eyes. Someone had taken a magnifying glass to the whole room. The air was heavy, smothering her. It was worse, and better, than it had ever been.

She twitched as he drew close, her mind unraveling one strand at a time.

He was like a picture of V that was better than the real thing. Clear. Solid. Real. Too real...the shadows on his mask could have cut glass or driven a man insane.

He reached out with one hand and she found herself tensing in anticipation. Over the past five days she'd had some thought, some vague sense of being at the end of a great story. A sort of relief, mixed in with the grief and wonder. She had finished her part in The Story Of V And Evey. She'd remembered the way it felt being close to him, like her steps had been laid out in front of her. The quiet hand of fate at her back.

Evey had felt the lack of that, and thought her part had been played...She'd thought herself at the ending when she was actually barreling blindly toward the climax. As she leaned toward his outstretched hand she couldn't help but think there would be a reckoning for her mistake.

Then he touched her, and it was like slipping into a pond. Cool and clear and wonderful. The contact felt supernatural. The wind died and the light softened. It was so startling, so obviously...other... that when she heard a chime and looked up, she was barely capable of any more surprises.

She tilted her head, a reflex, searching for the source of the sound. What had started as a faint ringing rapidly swelled in clarity and volume until it sounded like a ghostly orchestra had risen around them. She turned to stare at him, mouth slightly open.

The glass. Every piece of glass in the gallery was ringing. There was a faint thrumming coming from the piano. The glass covering his cases of butterflies were rattling in the frames.

His cold white mask regarded her silently, confounding reality.

She made an animal noise and flung herself at him, sobbing breathlessly into black cloth that smelled like smoke and blood.

Faintly, she heard the sound of breaking glass.

V hissed in a breath as if suffering from a few too many holes in his lungs to inhale properly. Rasping. The air came out as her name.

"Evey." Harsh and winded and barely sounding like himself. He turned his head towards her as she buried her face in his neck.

She was too far gone to notice anything for a while. A difficult thing, when wishes come true.

Breath and tears and the crush of black fabric under her fingers. Hot gouts of pain heaving up out of her, soaking into his shirt.

His hands were at her waist. He was holding her gently, as if she would break. She would, or he would.

"You said no lies." She spoke into his shoulder, her voice barely audible. "You were dying. You were dead."

She pulled back from him a little, going cold.

"You were dead," she whispered with certainty. She'd made sure of it. She'd made absolutely sure-

She did not think of the blood on her arms, of the heavy limp way his head lolled as she dragged his corpse toward the doors of the train.

Instead she rested her hand flat on his chest. She could feel the muscle underneath. Muscle, and nothing else.

"Your heart's not beating," she said faintly. She blinked and a tear dislodged from her eyelashes and fell free of her face onto her outstretched hand.

Above them, the lights flickered.

His hand lifted up, hesitating like old machinery. His glove pressed against her cheek. It smelled like fire and brimstone. She did not flinch.

"Yes," he said in a rusty voice. "Yes, I remember dying. You were-" He turned his head in a surprisingly swift movement, a quick glance as if trying to place where he was now as opposed to where he had died."You were there," he continued. His voice was abruptly much more like it had been, smoother, stronger.

"What's happened to you?" she asked with a certain measure of detached horror clouding her voice. He stepped back from her, looked down at himself briefly. It almost...it almost hurt a little, when he pulled away from her. She was suddenly very tired.

"'Diseased Nature oftentimes breaks forth in strange eruptions...'" He sounded shaky.

He was standing right in front of her, but she suddenly missed him so badly she had to gasp past the pain in her chest.

He took an unsteady step back, looking as bad as she felt. He did not reach for her, but lifted a hand to lean against the back of a chair that was close. He slipped, upending it in a clumsiness so uncharacteristic it gave her a chill.

It was him. It was his voice. It was him, it had to be or she really was mad.

She managed to catch him but fumbled it again, and they both went down.

The motion, the feel of him folding in her arms shoved ice down the back of her neck. She was reminded of ghosts replaying the final moments of their lives, over and over, whether anyone cared to watch or not.

Evey tasted hell in that moment, and shuddered in real anguish as she looked down into the upturned face of his mask.

"Ohhh, Evey," he sighed. "I don't think I can stay long..."

There were no bullet wounds, no bullet holes, and no heartbeat...

"You can breathe, can't you?" she demanded, fighting through her tears. "If you're speaking, you're breathing."

She took his hand in hers, pushed it up against her own chest, where her own heart was beating, stuttering along in shock.

"If you can breathe, you can live!" she snarled at him, not caring if it made no sense. Couldn't do without a heart, hearts were too important to go without...

She pushed his hand against her heart as if she could push one into the other-as if he could live by osmosis.

A corpse couldn't breathe but he could. He could do it. He could live if he wanted it...

The lights were flickering madly now, a staccato beat of bright and dark that had the shadows crawling in unnatural shapes all around them.

Her heart was pounding unpleasantly under his fingers, it almost felt like he **was** holding it. She was so cold, and if it was all in her head the air shouldn't fog with her breath like that, should it?

Somewhere within the failing lights all the color had been leached out of the gallery. Camera flashes in black and white.

Evey reached down, touched his chest with numb fingers.

Way back in a dusty unused corner of her mind, she felt like something was asking her a question.

"Stay," she said softly. It felt like it was the most important thing she'd ever said, as if it meant more than she could possibly imagine.

The pain was sharp and unexpected. A burst of agony like she'd been shot in the chest. She fell back onto the ground with a cry.

Shuddering, moaning as if he felt it too, V reached for her, trying to keep her close.

In her last moment of clarity she was certain she was dying.

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"Diseased Nature oftentimes breaks forth  
In strange eruptions." -_King Henry IV_


	2. Chapter 2

Resurrection Blues

Ch 2

_"Bang."-Cowboy Bebop_

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She woke curled up against him with a sick, wet gasp and realized in the first confused surge of thought that there was a heart beating underneath her cheek. Underneath the damp black fabric she had crushed in her fists.

Wait...what?

She lifted her head and had to blink her eyes against the strange, glittery glow.

Then she opened her eyes wide and stopped breathing.

The Wurlitzer was the only source of light still lit. It was enough to illuminate the glitter of frost that seemed to be covering every inch of the gallery all around her. The paintings. The statues. Everything.

She had frost in her eyelashes. She lifted her hand to rub at them and left a melted outline of her fingers in the frost on V's vest.

She exhaled in slow shock and her breath fogged in the air before her face.

Then V shifted beside her. His head moved a little and he sighed, fogging the air above the mouth of his mask.

Evey's hands were shaking. She deliberately curled her hands into fists, then relaxed them.

V made a soft murmuring noise and moved. He stopped as if he'd felt her leaning against him.

"Evey?" Soft. Very soft. But he sounded human again, and she had to turn her face away and take a few deep breaths so she wouldn't cry.

He sat up slowly, hesitating, taking in the surreal surroundings.

"What went on here?" There was a hint of amusement in his voice.

"I don't know," she said. Madness and wonder. Genie wishes right from the bottle.

"Do you remember what happened," she managed, "at the tube station, you..."

-Died-

"After what happened? Do you remember?" His mask had gone askew when she'd heaved him onto his bower of explosives. She'd reached out to right it...

V barely hesitated.

"No." Calm, to the point. 'Yes, I killed him'

"I..." She lowered her eyes, considered the floor for a moment, and went for broke. "I put you on the train," she managed. When he made no immediate response she looked up at him, almost pleadingly. "I put you on the train, V." She reached up, touched her mouth. Her fingers were cold. "You were dead."

The white mask tilted away from her, picking up a faint shine from the neon light coming off the Wurlitzer There was a slight movement in his shoulders, as if he was thinking very hard.

"Did you."

Mute, she nodded once.

The mask turned once more in her direction, but didn't quite lift high enough to look her in the eye. It was almost like he couldn't quite force himself to do it.

"That was...very kind." V almost sounded breathless. He was looking at her hands now, she would swear it. Checking for blood?

"It must have been beautiful," he said, his voice suddenly thick. She knew exactly what he meant. Parliament.

"It was." She said it almost before he'd finished speaking, and the wonder in her voice was enough to get him to look up at her face again. She saw a shiver run through him when he did, and it came to her all of a sudden that he was upset. He turned from her quickly, as if it hurt to see her. Looked around at the gallery.

"Home," he said, after a moment. As if he was tasting the word, to see if it was still good. He straightened himself in a fluid motion that for some reason made her stomach ache a little in appreciation. He drew a leg up, leaned his elbow where it bent at the knee.

"Quite an afterlife I've found my way to," he said thoughtfully, and Evey frowned at him.

"If this is a way station," he said quietly, seriously,"I can not hope to be going anywhere pleasant." He leaned closer to her, and his hand came up and just brushed her cheek. She caught her breath.

"I should hate to taint you." His voice seemed to imply that every grace humanity was offered rested firmly across her shoulders.

Her head came up sharply.

"Taint me!" she said, indignant. He cut her off.

"Have you died then, Evey?" A hush of deadly seriousness colored his voice. Very upset. The idea of his own death had not seemed to distress him half so much.

Evey opened her mouth with an easy answer about to fall from her lips, but stopped, twitching a little. It couldn't be...she didn't remember anything...

"I don't know," she said honestly, sounding bewildered to her own ears. He hunched his shoulders and barely nodded, a slight inch of movement. He took one breath, sounding pained. She looked down to cover how much it bothered her to hear it.

"I'll probably wake up in a minute," she said, blinking a tear down her cheek. "And you'll be gone again..." She leaned forward a little, just enough to rest her head on his shoulder. It was pleasant in a purely physical way, like stepping into a hot shower after a long day.

He made the smallest sound as she touched him. It was sweet to her ear, given the cause.

"Evey..." he sighed, and she felt his hand come up against the back of her head. His fingers trailed down her neck and curled under her jaw. He lifted her head so she was looking at him.

""Things must be as they may"" V murmured gently, his voice warm enough to wrap herself in on a cold winter night. "But before we continue on to our fates, let me say this." His other hand came up, resting at the back of her neck, until he was effectively cradling her head in his hands.

"If there was anything that could have made me regret leaving this life...it was you." She had heard that kind of conviction in his voice before. The first time it had convinced her to commit what was, at that point, one of the rashest decisions of her life. It was reassuring to hear it again, like a signpost on a dark and wooded path.

She smiled, suddenly warmed.

"I believe you," she said simply.

He hissed in a slow breath through his teeth at the magnitude of that statement. His head tilted and his thumb stroked along her cheek.

She kissed him gently. She had left a kiss there once, lingering on painted lips. An offering, freely given. Now she retrieved it, and he went still as tombs as she did it.

She felt him, heard him inhale deeply on the other side of a porcelain smile. Tasting as much of her as he could.

"V," she said against the false lips. "I would like it if you kissed me." She looked up at him as she said it, and was not surprised when he pulled back. Nor by the way he stiffened up. His hands slid away from her face, down to cup her shoulders.

"Evey..." The concentrated longing in his voice she had not expected, and it squeezed at her heart dangerously.

"Please," she sighed it with every scrap of feeling she had left. Then she looked up at him, leaning very close. "We may not have much time."

He lowered his head. The shadows made his mask look dark and unfamiliar.

No one gets a second chance, not in a reasonable world, he wouldn't-

His hands at her shoulders clamped down hard, and his whole body tensed.

"Shut your eyes," he said in a rough, scratchy voice.

Hope snatched her voice away. She held her breath and shut her eyes. The sounds she heard were magnified a thousand times over.

He was breathing very fast, puffing against the mask. There was a shifting of cloth and the faint clink of metal. Straps?

His breath sounded different. Not muffled any longer.

She curled her hands into two tight fists in her lap. A soft thunk as the mask was set aside.

Evey felt him lean over.

Delicately, touching nothing but her lips, he pressed a kiss there. It was light, and meant to be brief, she could tell he was pulling away almost before he'd touched her. She spied his intent and opened her mouth under his as soon as she felt him try to pull back.

He froze at the feel of her tongue on the inside of his lip. She pushed her luck, leaning into him. Following through with careful, deliberate persistence. He gave way under the sudden onslaught. After a stunned moment he began to respond to her, hesitantly at first. He seemed to gain more confidence as they went, tasting her as she 'd tasted him.

The heat coming off him was incredible. His breath on her face felt like a blast from a furnace. It should have burned but didn't. It just soaked into her, sinking into her bones. Making her feel young and strong and delightfully indestructible.

She lifted her hands to cup his face, but he snatched at them quickly, holding them away from his cheeks. He parted his lips from her, breathing into her face as if suddenly indecisive.

She probably failed to hide her disappointment.

He squeezed her hands. She couldn't tell if it was in reassurance or if he was accepting the blame for whatever he must be seeing on her face. The temptation to open her eyes was terrible, and perhaps he saw that, too. He recoiled from her, and she lowered her head, hearing him retrieve his face and settle it back into its accustomed place.

Evey opened her eyes and looked down at her hands. She could still feel the warmth he'd passed on to her, radiating high in her chest like a small sun.

He did not quite look at her over his shoulder.

"I'm sorry Evey," he said. He sounded sorry. He sounded like someone had given him a good hard shaking.

She smiled.

"You taste wonderful," she said.

V froze, looking at her as if she'd sprouted wings.

"Ah." It wasn't quite a word, more like an exclamation of breath. It was delicious to the ear, and sent a little shiver down the small of her back.

Evey's face felt warm and she looked away. It was good that she had, as it allowed her to notice a rather glaring change in the surroundings.

She sat bolt upright, looking about in disbelief.

"V..." The frost was gone. Just...gone. She reached out and touched the floor, the upturned chair, the stool next to the chair. Nothing was even wet.

"Interesting," V mused. She looked up as V got to his feet, watched him as he walked a step or two, ran his fingers over the yellow stone of the wall with a thoughtful noise.

Evey rubbed her hand over the short stubble on her scalp. Looking up and around.

"We've broken all the lights," she said.

"I can't imagine we had much to do with it," he replied, walking back to her.

Evey stared at him and puffed out a breath in disbelief.

"Though, it's a pity about the frontispiece," he said, nodding at the cracked face of the Wurlitzer

He held out a hand to her and she took it, letting him pull her to her feet with just enough force that she bumped him a little.

"Oh," she said sorrowfully, touching the imperfection. She turned her head quickly, looking back at him. "Will it still play?"

V leaned past her and pressed a button. His sleeve brushed her arm. After a moment, the machine started to click and hum in a familiar way.

A woman began to sing energetically, and V turned to her. She would swear they shared a relieved smile.

He squeezed her hand and she realized that he hadn't let go of her after helping her up. His fingers...lingered. Clasping her hand, now tight, now loose, as if he was of a mind to release her but couldn't quite bring himself to.

Finally, he spoke.

"Shall we explore our unusual purgatory?" V asked with a gesture at the gallery. He did not release her, his decision made.

Evey slid her fingers a little further against V's offered hand. She nodded thoughtfully.

"All right."

Evey fell into step beside him, glancing around the gallery. There was an occasional crunch of broken glass underfoot.

"After all, mortals seldom tread in the realm of the gods for no reason," V continued. She paused, frowning.

"That's a funny way to put it," she said. He glanced back at her. "Gods," she prompted.

V turned and held her arm out to the side a bit, as if admiring her.

"If the gods have a realm," he began, sounding pleased that she'd asked, "The afterlife must be it. They don't often have much to do with the living."

"It's strange to hear that, coming from you," Evey commented, leaning back.

"Why?" V asked softly, taking a half step to the side, as if trying to see her from another angle.

They might have almost been dancing, she thought with an strange kind of stillness settling over her heart.

Evey matched his footwork, squaring up to him again.

" Aren't you the one who always talks about fate?" she asked, and some of that stillness crept into her voice and made her sound very...odd.

He took another half step to the side, one leg crossing behind the other.

"Fate? Have I talked about that?" He said it as though asking himself. "Coincidence, perhaps. I confessed a lack of faith. I never spoke to you about fate."

"You don't have to say the word to be talking about it." She smiled faintly. "We make guilty of our misfortunes the sun and the stars; as if we were villains on necessity; " She prompted him. She was sure it wasn't quite right, but it was close enough.

His grip on her hand slackened, and he stepped back from her as if she was dangerous.

"You said that, or pretty close to it," she reminded him. "After you brought me here, there was that bit on the news about what you did to Jordan Tower." She hesitated and continued delicately. "It seemed to upset you." He was very still, the dance forgotten. She couldn't read him at all. "Some of it," she added softly, "seemed to upset you."

"'Fools by heavenly compulsion...and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on'...King Lear," He said."yes." He spoke with enough careful absence of emphasis she was left not entirely sure what he was agreeing with, if anything. Then he tilted his head with a little laugh.

"I didn't think you'd noticed." He was staring at her.

She smiled tentatively, somehow reassured.

"I lived here, V."

There was a thick silence. His posture shifted and as he stepped near it suddenly occurred to her that he may want to kiss her again. Then he got closer, and she was sure of it. His mask tilted as he leaned in, getting as close to her as he could without touching. She saw him stop himself from going farther than that. Watched him stiffen up a little, and wondered why.

"In some ways..." He said quietly, and trailed off. She watched the tension in him swell up until, finally,

"You never left." His tone of voice was very different. "You were always here." He sounded very much like a man who wanted to be kissed, but was expecting to be slapped.

Evey opened her mouth and pulled her head back, momentarily speechless.

She knew what he meant by it. For a bright moment that was all there was. He had loved her too much...But then, in her mind's eye, a splinter of memory was unearthed and she thought only of That Room. That room that was tainted with her blood, her shit, her tears. Her frightened little Evey. She had left that place behind, and yet she was still there. Some of her, bits of her. Forever.

He hadn't meant it that way. But that was what she thought of.

He saw it, in the line of her shoulders, the lift of her jaw. He recoiled from his position close to her as if he'd never belonged there. She folded her arms across her chest, turning away from him.

"Evey," he began, and there was a plea in his voice, a man wandering through a minefield.

She looked at him and smiled, the curl of her lips carved with deliberate calculation.

"The realm of the gods has an eye for detail," Evey pointed out, ignoring him coolly. "My cup of tea is still on the table."

He even pretended to look.

"Yes." It was more of a sigh than a word. A quiet acknowledgment to misery.

She'd been deliberately jangled in nearly every way, and for a moment, it felt good to punish him for it. Then she looked up and saw the clock on a shelf.

A clock. Just a clock. 12:50am. She'd lost nearly an hour...

12:50. He'd be starting up in five minutes, she thought suddenly. He, or she.

The night after the fifth, right at midnight, someone, somewhere, had taken over the speakers again. Maybe even someone working at the office. Someone sick of silence. Someone with access to a wealth of banned music. They started with Beethoven's fifth, and ran blacklisted songs over the public announcement speakers for an hour. Ended with the 1812 overture every night, right at 1am. So, at 1am for the last four days, everyone who wasn't outside already would go out on the rooftops. Celebrating their freedom to balk curfew.

The freedom V had bought for them, paid in coin and blood.

She glanced back at V, at the pained look of his posture, and felt a sharp burn of shame.

Evey hesitated, thinking hard, raking through the coals of her emotions. After some small amount of self-reflection, she nodded to herself, and unfolded her arms. Unlocking her body language deliberately.

"V," she said, sounding apologetic to her own ears.

"It's all right," he interrupted quickly.

"No, it isn't," she replied, just as frankly. She glanced away, then back. " I have something for you."

His head came up sharply. She tried on a small smile. " A gift."

"You..." he sounded caught off guard. He straightened, and rather looked as if he'd been lifted up. "Yes," and his voice was softer, suddenly eager. "Yes, of course."

She offered him her hand and he took it.

"We'll need to go up," she cautioned him. She imagined this would decide one way or the other if they were in the real world or...or something else.

"All right." His voice seemed to imply that if she'd told him they needed to march right into police headquarters, his reply would have been the same.

As they walked toward the lift she suddenly felt that she was dangerous to him, as if she held a weapon that she didn't know how to use.

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"Things must be as they may"- Henry V

"We make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains on necessity;... Fools by heavenly compulsion...and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on" -King Lear


	3. Chapter 3

**-thanks to HighLordSavaar for corrections and suggestions-**  
Ch 3_  
_

_"'Is he dead?'  
'That's the problem. He was dead to begin with.'"-Sleepy Hollow _

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Evey heard the music before they even made it out onto the roof. The sound of it poured relief down her back like cold water on a hot day. It wasn't the Overture, not yet. They hadn't missed it. She looked back at him with a smile as she led the way. It was all right. It was going to be all right.

He tilted his head at the sound. His hand squeezed hers slightly and she thought, though she could not be sure, that he was happier than she'd ever seen him. It was eye-catching, and she was looking back, not forward, as she stepped out onto the roof.

He stiffened at the threshold, and his feet stopped as if he'd been glued in place. With a pang of unease, Evey looked out over London.

She choked, and stood very still.

"Can you..." V sounded almost strangled. "Can you see it?"

She saw. She saw further than it was possible for her to see. Ten miles, twenty, in any direction she cared to look. Every detail was as sharp as if she was standing five feet away. She tried to look as far as she could, but it just kept going, on and on, and she thought with a stab of vertigo that she might be able to look right out over the channel, to France, and count the hairs on the heads of the people there. Her eyes were burning with the the strain of it, as if they were being asked to do things no human being had a right to ask their eyes to do. It made it hard to concentrate enough to talk, but somehow she managed it.

"Yes." She squinted, her eyes watering. "I see it."

The music filling the air dropped off, and the silence squeezed at her unpleasantly. Every person in London was listening, and she could feel the sudden weight of their expectation like a vice to the head. She clapped her hands over her ears, grimacing at the pressure. Behind her, V grunted in pain.

Then the Overture started, and she fell down. It was like a balloon popping. She bruised her knees and she curled herself over them, wincing. The music stopped hinting around and got to the point, swelling proudly in the air. She looked up, looked for V, and found herself looking right at his outstretched hand. All Evey wanted to do at that moment was find a bed and crawl into it, but she took his hand anyway, pulled herself up.

"Look," he said, his voice hushed. He took her shoulders and turned her to face London. "Look at them, Evey."

She could see their faces. Every last one of them. She might have taken a single step and sailed off into the clouds. Her heart was that light.

"They're free." She looked over her shoulder at him and smiled. "You did it."

"The hand that pulled the lever was yours." His hands slid down her arms as he leaned in from behind her. He almost rested his chin on her shoulder. Almost, not quite.

"Not me." There was a smile in her voice, and a keen understanding. "Not you," she continued slowly. " It was us." She smiled out at the city. "It was all of us." Deliberately, she leaned back against him.

He let out a breath and sagged a little. His arms did not quite manage to come around her. It was wonderful anyway.

Over the speakers, the last cannons sounded.

"Evey," his voice came very close to her ear and she shut her eyes a moment. "What is the day? It isn't the fifth."

"No," she replied, surprised. "No, it's the tenth now."

"Tenth?" he repeated sharply. Then, more slowly, "The tenth." He tilted his head back a little and let out a slow breath. He stepped away from her, whispered something under his breath that she couldn't make out. He might have been praying, or cursing. For some reason both options alarmed her.

"What? What is it?" she asked him. He turned away from her and laughed a little. Just a breath of pure hysteria. Her concern ratcheted up a level at the unsettling lack of sanity in the sound.

He turned to her as if sharing a great joke, spread his arms wide.

"And on the fifth day..." he trailed off, seeming to notice the look on Evey's face. His hands dropped and he straightened swiftly, taking a step toward her.

"I'm sorry." His voice was suddenly warm. "I'm fine, I just..." He trailed off, looked away for a moment before shaking his head. "There is a perfect lack of coincidence in this world."

Evey thought about that for a moment and nodded, pulling up a rather wry smile from somewhere.

"I'm beginning to think you have a point."

He touched her cheek with the back of his fingers, surprising her.

"What do you think is going on?" she asked him with sudden intensity. A dream wouldn't have surprised her. If it was all a dream nothing he could have done would have really surprised her. "I could see them, I could see everything..."

She looked, strained her eyes.  
"It's gone now," she muttered, shaking her head.

"I know."

She smiled.  
"But you don't know what it means."

"I'm afraid not. I've been mostly dead all day." There was amusement in his voice that she didn't quite get. As if he'd said something that should have been funny. " I may have a book or two that might have something to say about this, but as for right now..."

He took her hand and bowed over it, touching carved lips to her knuckles.

"My thanks." He lifted his head, the white moon of his mask seeming oddly sincere. "For your gift." He prompted, when she looked confused.

She almost laughed. She's just wanted him to hear it played, to see for himself what the people had done to remember.

"After everything you've done, for this country..." her voice changed, " for me..." she was quiet for a moment. "Did I ever thank you? Even once?"

"Don't." The word sounded squeezed out of him. "Oh, don't thank me. Don't." Anguish was seeping into his voice, gaining more ground with every word. He was very close to her, touching her arm, the side of her neck. "Please, please don't..." She thought, with a jerk of her stomach, that he might be close to crying.

In that moment she would have promised him anything.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..." she said anxiously, easing into his arms. She touched the smooth curve of the mask's cheek, suddenly terrified of hurting him further. " I'm sorry..."

His arms tightened around her like steel cables.  
"Please," He whispered into her hair.

"All right." Anything. Anything...

He was holding her too tightly, and she couldn't have cared less. V had lifted her right up off her feet, and she didn't think he'd even noticed he'd done it. Her feet dangled, her toes barely brushing the ground.

She couldn't touch him. That fact was brought home to her with unbearable clarity. She couldn't touch him to comfort him, not anywhere...she let her head fall to rest on his shoulder, shifted a little to get comfortable. It was as close as she could get, as close as she had ever been...

She pressed against him, and froze. He was pressing back, and with a little jolt, she realized he was hard.

She lifted her head sharply to look at him. V stiffened and let out a breath, quickly depositing her on her feet. He moved to step back, but had trouble when she didn't let go of him. His mask came down to see her face, and Evey was waiting, watching him. She didn't tell him she didn't mind...the interest.  
She was certain he understood her anyway. She offered up a faint smile and leaned her weight against him, a little.

"Ah," he sighed. He looked down, retrieved one of her hands from where it rested at his waist. He lifted it, pressed it against the porcelain cheek of the mask. His thumb gently stroked the inside of her wrist.

It was surprisingly intimate. The skin there was delicate, and his touch there sent sparks of sensation right up the inside of her arm.

Evey could almost feel him getting a hold of himself. Pulling back, as opposed to getting closer. She stood there with her hand cradled up against his face as if he thought it was the most valuable thing in London. She had to admit, it was without a doubt the nicest rejection she'd ever received.

"We could go. Out, into the streets. Half the people out these days are dressed up like Guy Fawkes," she said softly. V lowered her hand, looked out over the city. "They started piling up all the black bags in Trafalgar Square," she told him, tempting. "It must be nearly as tall as I am by now."

V glanced at her swiftly.  
"And what will they do when it rains?" He sounded much calmer.

"Let them rot," she said shortly. She stepped toward the doorway, tugging at the hand that connected them. "You should see it. You should see everything that's changing."

"It will not be as I hoped it would be," V said, but allowed her to lead him. "I might hope that it will be better. I didn't expect to live to see it."

Evey stopped in front of the lift, looked back at him.

"And if you didn't? If I didn't?" she asked, thinking suddenly of Alice in Wonderland. Maybe they'd only slipped through into somewhere else, something that looked like home but wasn't. She felt a ripple of unease and frowned to herself.

V tilted his head, seeming to examine her expression.

"Then I would like to dance with you again," he said simply. She smiled at him brilliantly, touched. He stepped into the lift with her, looking pleased with himself.

In five days, she'd been through a few places in the gallery that she hadn't quite dared to go in her time there before the fifth. So while V went to retrieve his hat, Evey went into the kitchen and grabbed one of his capes that she'd been wearing out at night. She'd left it over the back of a chair. It was still there, as were the crumbs she'd left on the counter from lunch.

She wondered if maybe she'd been imagining things. Maybe she hadn't actually seen the strange and impossible. Maybe it was all just in her head. But V...he was impossible, too.

The gallery suddenly seemed very quiet. Her heart constricted into a terrible little black hole in her chest and she ran out into the main room, expecting to find herself alone, and V gone without a trace.

He was standing by the couch, a tall pillar in black.

Evey considered fainting in relief.

"It was so quiet," there was almost a laugh in her voice, at her own foolishness, "I thought you'd gone."

V remained still and silent, looking down at something. She frowned. Was he looking at her teacup? She'd left it on the table at the back of the couch but she couldn't imagine why...

Then he reached down and picked something up off the cushion of the couch. A slim red volume, marked with a paper clip where she'd stopped reading it last night.

"Oh," she said with a sinking sensation. The diary. She shifted on her feet, not sure why she felt guilty.

"Where did you get this?" he did not sound angry, and she relaxed a little. He opened the book to the place it was marked and turned to her, holding it in his hands like it was a living thing.

"Mr. Finch-"

"Inspector Finch?" V interrupted sharply, snapping the book shut. Wordless, she nodded. "He was here?"

"He found the train that night. After you...after I laid you out on the train," she said, a bit curious about the sudden intensity in his voice. "I hand my hand on the lever, and there he was." A smile crept into her voice, and she looked away, remembering. "He told me to take my hand off it or he'd shoot me."

V had gone very still.

"What did you tell him?"

She did laugh then.  
"I said no."

"Did you?" There was a laugh in his voice as well and she smiled at him.

"He didn't really have the heart for it, though. We watched parliament go up together." She nodded at the diary. "He dropped that off yesterday."

He walked toward her, fingering the cover absently.

"You thought I might be angry about this," he said, tapping the spine of the book. He tilted his head as if examining her. She imagined her face gave away the answer pretty clearly.

"I have no objection," he said smoothly, handing it to her. When she reached to take it he covered her hand with his.

"There are no happy endings to be found here," he warned her, trapping her hand between his and the book.

"It's your story, isn't it." Evey said, looking down at their hands held together. V hesitated.

"Yes." He sighed the word. "In part."

"Then I'm not surprised," she stepped back, taking the book from him. " Your ending isn't in here." She set the book aside, took the cape from where it rested at the crook of her arm.

She imagined, from the look of his posture, that she'd surprised him.

Evey pulled V's cape over her shoulders, letting it flare out behind her as she moved. V was already reaching for her, and stopped dead. She followed where he seemed to be looking and found herself staring at the cape draped over her. He reached out and barely touched it, running his fingers lightly over her shoulder.

"It's yours," Evey said. " I was trying to blend in."

"Yes, I see." V mused, touching the fabric again. He pulled it a little further forward, smoothing it out. She tried on a smile, just to see how it felt.

He looked odd, the set of his shoulders, maybe.  
"You like it, that I'm wearing this," she realized. V stepped back and straightened his clothing a bit.

Embarrassed, she thought wonderingly, he's...

"Shall we?" He asked quickly and she made a valiant effort to straighten her expression. As they went through the door she felt V put a hand at her back, like a shield.

They went up and out, a labyrinth of long forgotten tunnels hiding a lift that put them near to the door Evey had shown Finch through not two hours ago. She would recall, later, the tiniest twinge of unease as they approached it, the slightest sense of something not right just as V grasped the handle. He disengaged the locks and pulled it open.

The sensation she had upon seeing the street outside was a familiar one. She had felt the same after pushing open the door to her prison and finding the Shadow Gallery on the other side of it. A familiar place turned sinister despite the fact that there was nothing physically different to mark the change. There was something horrible and wrong in that normal, innocuous view. She was already reaching to grab for his arm, her words choking off in her throat, when he stepped through the doorway.

He wanted to keep her safe. He went out ahead and checked to make certain it was safe for her. His foot crossed the threshold and he stepped out into London.

As his boot touched the ground, something unnatural bloomed in her chest and snaked tightly around her heart. V turned to look at her sharply, though she would swear she'd made no sound. Beyond the door, someone on the street started to laugh.

His mask pivoted in that direction. He almost looked like he was moving in slow motion, taking a half step into the street, pulling away from the doorway and out into the city.

She was suddenly light-headed. Evey leaned against the door frame and noticed dimly that the color had leeched out of things, leaving the world looking gray and dead.

V hesitated, and she saw past him, across the street. The bald man she had seen smoking earlier was standing under a streetlight. He managed somehow to laugh without moving, a stone carving of mirth. His mouth was frozen in a grotesque kind of grimace, and Evey went cold. There was a twisting in her gut that hissed at her of a trap closing in over their heads. She tried to speak and could get no air. She tried to grab the wall to keep herself propped up, but started sliding down the door frame when her fingers fumbled uselessly for purchase.

V cocked his head and tipped his hat, but she saw his hand lingering near the hilts of his knives when he turned to look at her.

V saw the state of her and stiffened, just as the man spoke.

"You're killing your girl." The man scolded as V grabbed for her, gathering her up.

"Evey," V said anxiously, pulling her close, " what's wrong?" Her fingers weren't working, so all she could do was lean against him while he held her up. V reached down and caught her behind the knees, lifting her up into his arms.

Her heart was pounding in her chest, a little flutter of pain with each pulse.

She heard that laugh again, rising up over the curve of V's shoulders. His mask was huge, lighting up the whole sky, but she couldn't hear him anymore over the bald man's mirth.

V was speaking, he was trying to tell her something, but he was drowned out.

"You can only go so far on faith alone!" the bald man shouted. The door slammed shut on the mocking voice, and everything went black.

---------------------------


	4. Chapter 4

Resurrection Blues

Ch 4

_"But she doesn't like him. I thought she didn't like him." -Pride and Prejudice (2005)_

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Her dreams were dark and full of shifting sands. Insubstantial terrors that melted away as soon as she turned to face them.

She woke with a gasp, as if she hadn't been able to breathe for a long time.

A heavy warmth shifted from her side.

"Evey?" The voice was rough with sleep. She looked up with a drowsy, weightless calm and saw V raising himself off the bed, reaching for her. There was a kind of controlled panic in his movements that surprised her. "Evey. Oh..."

He cupped her face, and she realized he wasn't wearing anything on his hands.

"Whuh..."she mumbled blearily.

"Let me look at you." He touched his forehead to hers, the mask warm against her skin. "OH, my Evey..." His mask slid past her face as he cradled her to his chest.

Hesitantly, somewhat overwhelmed, she returned the embrace, sliding her hands up around him.

He was gentle with her, and he smelled wonderful. Comforted, she let herself start to drift without trying to think very hard about their situation. She felt him stroking her cheek and opened her eyes, not certain when she'd shut them.

"Ahh. There she is." He was very close to her, and in the dim yellow light he looked soft and human despite the mask. She smiled up at him, unthinking and relaxed. There was a fuzzy space in between her and her memories, and for a moment she enjoyed it. The room was dark, but for a small, warm light positioned over a book. The book was on the bed with her. As was V. She frowned, lifted her head to look around. The bed was full of books. The floor was littered with them. Most of them were open. A good number of them looked as though they'd been tossed aside.

"What's all this?" she asked, amused. She moved to prop herself up and was shocked when it took real effort.

"Easy," V admonished gently, moving quickly to ease her back onto the pillow. He touched her, on the side of her face, brushing down her shoulders, smoothing out the blanket that covered her. The gesture was almost unconscious on his part, but Evey had spent time in hospitals when she was a girl and she recognized it. It was the sort of thing one did for a loved one when there was nothing else that could be done for them. Suddenly frightened, she grabbed onto his arm, squeezing hard.

"V, what's going on?" she demanded sharply. She dug her nails in. She was probably hurting him. From the look of him, he needed a bit of a jolt.

He looked down at her hand on him with a kind of dim surprise radiating off his shoulders. After a moment of hesitation he took a deep breath and with a quick, expert flick of his fingers, uncurled her hand from its death grip on his forearm and brought it deftly up for a kiss from his painted lips.

"You've...been ill," he said to her fingers.

Evey looked down at herself.

"I feel..." she said, and stopped. She'd meant to tell him she felt all right, but when she looked down she saw the bandage at the crook of her arm and the needles on the table beside her. Needles and bottles filled with liquid. Something horrible crawled into her chest and sat on her heart. She sat bolt upright.

"What have you done to me?" she demanded, holding the injured arm close to her chest.

V flinched.

With a disbelieving, furious shake of her head, she moved to get out of the bed, knocking several books onto the floor. She might have left right then, never to return, but he grabbed her hand before she even had a foot on the floor.

"Evey, please-"

"-No!" she pulled at the hand he held. "You drug me while I..." she hesitated, her last memories before waking finally swimming to the surface. Sleeping? Had she been sleeping?

V pounced on her uncertainty.

"You were so ill, I only-"

"-I feel fine!" she said with a flash of panic. An image of him welled up, that hopeless little straightening of her clothing, her covers, she'd seen that before...

He caught her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake, looking for all the world like a man at the end of his rope.

"It's been three days," V said raggedly. "Three days." He lifted a hand to touch her face and she jerked her head back mistrustfully.

V let both his hands drop, slumping. He suddenly looked smaller.

"The television," he said quietly. "You can check the date." He sounded very tired. She watched him carefully as she stood, but he made no move to stop her. By the time she got to the door she needed to lean on it. By the time she got to the couch her legs were shaking and she collapsed onto it, breathing hard. She didn't really need to check the day at that point. Her body was telling her quite clearly that she didn't have health on her side at the moment. She flipped it on anyway; after all, V was probably listening.

Evey took a few minutes to gather her strength before she began the trek back to her room. She could have called out for V to help her, he probably would have come running, but she didn't. Evey stopped in the doorway, partly to lean on it, partly just to look at him.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows resting on knees, intently studying the floor past his folded hands. He heard her enter, even though she was quiet and the door was open.

His mask lifted to look at her. The rest of him remained perfectly still.

Evey tilted her head down and lowered her eyes. She imagined most of the shame she was feeling was showing on her face.

V's mask nodded slightly, and from behind it came a soft sound of acknowledgment. Then, as if it meant nothing, he went back to regarding the floor. She felt a queer clenching in her stomach and wondered if it was actually his hands he was staring at. Even in the kind lighting they were gnarled and painful-looking without the gloves to mask them.

She made her way carefully to the bed. He did not look up, but she knew he was watching. If she'd fallen, he would've caught her before she hit the ground. His head turned a little in her direction as she sat beside him.

She was sure she should say something, but she couldn't think what.

V remained quiet for a moment.

"I love you," he said then.

Her eyes went wide.

When he lifted the mask to look at her, to see how she'd taken that, she had enough self-possession to manage a faint nod. Her eyes were burning, but she did not cry.

'I know,' she didn't say. He heard her anyway, and accepted it, inclining his head.

It didn't seem like much. Not nearly enough. She reached out and touched the back of his hand. Pressed her fingers against the rough skin, covered his hand with hers.

"Ahh," he sighed, as though she'd plucked the stars from the sky and given them to him in a basket. His palm turned up under hers, and then they were holding hands.

She rested her head on his shoulder. It seemed like the thing to do.

"Tell me what happened," she said quietly. His fingers toyed with her hand as if he recognized the comfort being offered and appreciated it.

"I brought you back to the gallery." He did not start with a question. It should have disturbed her. He did not ask what she remembered, did not ask what had caused her to drop so quickly. It should have bothered her then, but he so often seemed to pluck the thoughts right out of her head, she didn't even think to question him about it. "You were cold." He spoke like a man haunted by nightmares. "For a moment, I thought..." he paused, shook his head slightly. "I brought you back, and you seemed stronger every moment you were here. I could almost convince myself I'd imagined it, and that you were only sleeping."

She understood that feeling very well.

"The way it had happened seemed strange, just at the door like that, so when I thought you were safe I went out again." There was a break in his voice that spoke of long hours of self-recrimination, and she looked at him questioningly. Perhaps she should have asked him about his comment about the door, but she didn't.

"I went out another way, through the underground. I didn't get far. Not to the surface, at any rate. I felt..." he hesitated, looking down at her hand in his. " I felt odd. I went on for a few minutes but I knew something wasn't right." He shook his head. "When I came back you were nearly dead. You didn't have a measurable blood pressure any more."

There was silence.

"I get it," Evey said finally. "I feel all right, but I shouldn't, should I."

"No."

Evey got a little chill right up the back of her neck.

"And the books?" she asked, more to distract herself than anything else.

He laughed once, faintly.

"Everything I have on the occult, supernatural events, mythology and the paranormal." He turned to look behind himself. "I even have a few issues of 'Parabola' around here."

Evey nodded blankly, not understanding much of that at all. V saw the look on her face and laughed again, just one breath.

"I'm sorry. I forget, sometimes."

She suffered a rather useless pang of regret at not having read more when she'd been in the Gallery before, and had the chance. It was silly. He just seemed very alone for a moment and it made her sad.

He sounded exhausted, and she rubbed at the arm she was leaning against.

"Have you slept at all?" It felt strange and invasive to be asking; when had she ever seen him sleep? When had it started to concern her if he didn't?

"Here and there," he said in a voice that was telling her 'no, not for years, thanks'.

Evey freed her hand and crawled back up onto the bed, nudging books aside as she went. He turned, pushing back from the bed as if he shouldn't be there. She held out a hand for him.

V made an interesting sound low in his throat. It sounded painful.

She leaned over and took his hand, pulling at him gently.

"Go on, have a lie-in, I'm all right now," she urged.

"This is your bed," V protested uncomfortably, settling in place but not lying down.

Evey rolled onto her stomach and rested her head on her hand, cocking her head to look up at him.

"This is my gallery," she reminded him with a smile. "You should let me be hospitable."

She'd managed to startle him with that one. He stared at her for a moment.

"Well," he said simply, and lay back. Evey laughed a little, and that seemed to please him. She moved to get up, to give him some privacy but he pushed himself up immediately, unhappy.

"And you, will you sleep?" He sounded like the words had been forced out of him.

Was he...was he asking her to...?

"Yes," Evey said slowly, "Eventually. I wanted to look at some of these." She lifted one of the books off the bed.

His hand reached out and covered hers, pressing the book back into the blanket.

"Wait." He reached up near the headboard and freed a book from between the pillows.  
He handed it to her. "Here. This one. Start here." She moved to take it, but he didn't let go of it right away, surprising her.

She frowned at him a moment, thinking.

"V, do you want me to stay?" she asked.

He let out a breath and shifted uncomfortably on the bed.

She slid back in next to him, watching carefully for any sign of rejection. V sighed like a large weight had just been removed from his chest, and relaxed back against the pillow.

Evey smothered a smile and settled in with her introduction to the supernatural. The book was called 'Myths and Folk Tales'. It wasn't very thick.

She could feel him looking at her, and turned her head. It was an unusual kind of intimacy. His mask was turned to look at her, so she curled up on her side, facing him. It shouldn't have felt so strange. She'd been closer to him than this before. Something about being eye to eye with him, maybe.

"V, we can't..." she hesitated, "I can't leave, can I."

V thought about that, watching her as if she'd disappear if he didn't keep an eye out.

"I don't know. I don't think so." He shook his head slightly, his voice already soft and drowsy.

As forthright as he always was, even now.

She supposed she should have been frightened. Instead she found herself in the middle of a swelling tide of affection. On impulse, she lifted her hand and touched his painted cheek. It was smooth and warm, and she cupped her fingers along the edge of it tenderly. The world had gone prickly and peculiar, but he was the same.

He took a sharp breath when she touched him. Perhaps he was pleased at her familiarity. He didn't do anything to dissuade her. After a moment frozen, he lifted his own hand, brushed it across her cheek with a feather touch.

"If you can't leave, then neither can I," he said in a voice that could have tamed a wild dog. "I would not be parted from you again, wherever we are, wherever we may go." He turned his head a little, as if admiring her. "I will be here as long as you can bear to have me, Evey. 'to the gallows' foot, and after.'"

With that voice, if they'd been outside he would have charmed the birds out of the trees. What could she do when he spoke to her like that?

She smiled at him.

"Good," she replied, and to her own surprise, she meant it.

Unexpectedly, the book that V had given her was a children's book. It was full of stories that she was familiar with but could not really remember. After the first few tales she grew uneasy with it. The details were...different. Especially the endings. Darker. The children in the stories had a rough time. Their world was full of unnatural things lurking around every corner, snarling and slavering in the darkness. She drifted off while she was reading it.

Evey dreamed of her brother. They were walking together and it was getting dark. He drank from a stream, but it was poisonous and it turned him from a boy into a little golden deer. He ran away from her into the woods. She ran after him, crying, knowing that if she lost him there, she would never find him again, as long as she lived.

She got tangled in a hedge of thorns, and woke with a start to find herself in bed. Something held her tightly and in the first confused moment of waking she thought she was still caught, but when she moved something warm and solid shifted sleepily at her back, and she realized it was V.

She turned to look over her shoulder. He was spooned right up behind her, rather rumpled-looking and holding onto her tightly. In the soft light he looked rather dear. Not like a killer at all. She knew what he'd done, but looking at him it was hard for her to remember that.

She turned the light out.

He moved a little closer to her, made some soft murmuring noise at her back, but he didn't wake up. She reached down and felt for his hand in the dark. He still hadn't replaced his gloves, and she traced the unusual shape of them with the tips of her fingers. Hard knots and delicate, rippled valleys of flesh.

She thought idly about what she had seen of him, and what that likely meant for the rest of him. There was skin under that black cloth, though it was somehow unsettling to think of it. Hard to picture anything beneath his clothing, because it was difficult to imagine him without it.

V must have been practicing that unerring ability to hear what she was thinking, because he chose just that moment to present her with a sharp reminder of the humanity underneath his clothing.

He pulled her closer, pressing against her. Nudging up against her back. Evey felt it, felt him, quite clearly and froze.

"Evey..." V sighed in his sleep. He sounded so sad, as if even in his dreams she'd pushed him away. Like a man without any hope.

He'd told her he loved her, and she hadn't said anything at all. Lying there in the dark with V curled up against her, all at once Evey was ashamed of herself.

------------------------------------

"-the thousandth man will stand by your side; To the gallows foot, and after"-Rudyard Kipling


	5. Chapter 5

Resurrection Blues

Ch 5

She pressed herself back against his chest, feeling small and vile. He took a sharp breath close to her ear, and his arms tensed around her, just for a second.

Evey froze, not certain if she'd woken him up. Then she felt his thumb gently stroking the back of her hand.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you," She said quietly, tilting her head toward him.

"It's all right." His voice was drowsy and soft. She felt the smooth point of the nose of his mask brush the back of her head. It put a little shiver down the back of her neck. She took a deep breath, way down into the pit of her stomach, and turned in his arms.

He pulled his arms back away from her, but when she scooted closer to him he rested his hand on her shoulder. She reached up into darkness and felt the hard curve of his second face under her fingers. It was warm, leaching heat from his skin underneath. She stroked her fingers across it as if it was real, as if he could feel her hand on his cheek.

She might imagine from his reaction that he could. Some magical sixth sense. Everything that had happened to her since Finch had shown up at the train pointing a gun at her seemed strange and surreal enough to allow it.

V relaxed under the touch he shouldn't have been able to feel, and after a moment his hand started to make little circles on her back. It was soothing.

"Will you take it off?" she asked absently, trailing her fingers to the delicate corner of a carven mouth.

He was silent for a moment. She noticed now that he was awake he was holding his hips away from her, as if he was trying to protect her from something. She ran her thumb over the ripples on the porcelain surface that could only be his mustache and felt him inhale through the slit in the mouth of his mask.

He covered her hand with his, gently pulled it away.

"It would be best," he began, but his rich voice had turned rough, and he had to stop and clear his throat. "It would be best not to become too accustomed to this." It was a warning, but almost as if someone had whispered in her ear, she knew he wasn't talking to her. He went to speak again, apparently not having convinced himself.

She leaned over and pressed her mouth to the delicate painted curve of his lower lip. His hand came up and just barely touched her cheek. She nuzzled him like an affectionate cat. He let out a breath of nervous laughter.

She couldn't help but notice his hand was shaking.

"Please," she said quietly, and kissed his palm. She felt him shiver a little.

He sighed into the darkness, and pulled his hand from hers. She heard the clink of a buckle easing its hold on a leather strap. Evey went to reach for him but he knew, somehow he knew and caught her fingers.

She found his lips in the dark without faltering.

He moaned into her mouth like she'd hurt him somehow. It gave her a jolt, solid and warm, right down to her toes. He pulled back as if he'd felt it too, hissed in a breath through his teeth. He stroked rough fingers down her cheek, along the arch of her neck. His heart was pounding hard enough for her to feel it through his clothing and hers.

That lovely, marvelous heartbeat...

She put her fingers there, grinning like a child.

It was a curious function of time, that when they were together, everything seemed so...concentrated. As if they moved in slow motion, every gesture amplified, every action distilled for purity. It was as unnerving as it had been the day she noticed it, even more so, since she now found herself beginning to crave it. She loved the rumble of the thunder, the ozone snap of lightning in the air.

The way his hand slid over her shoulder and down her back. Finally coming to rest at the base of her spine, one of his fingers just barely dipping beneath the edge of her shirt to touch bare skin.

They sighed together at the sensation.

He'd let himself get distracted, let her get much closer. He was pressed quite noticeably into her thigh and she squirmed a bit against the feel of it.

V gasped when she moved, grabbed at her, as if to keep her still. Her hips were still free, so he didn't do a very good job of it. She pushed her hips forward, rubbing against him with a soft, pleased sound on her lips.

"Oh, god..." he said, a man on a fast-sinking ship.

He found her mouth in the dark that time, and showed that though he may have not had much schooling in that particular area of life, he was a quick study. He put his lips to work and kissed her so thoroughly, with such single-minded attention that she was hard put to get her breath.

She slid her hands up his shirt and laid her palm against the side of his bare face, only thinking of getting closer. When she felt the roughness and warmth of real skin she remembered why she shouldn't have.

V tensed and jerked back. He was breathing fast, and snatched at her hand, squeezing it uncomfortably.

For a moment they said nothing, silent and awkward in the darkness. She spent a minute working her fingers loose, and started to relax when V let her.

"It's just another mask. It isn't me," he said gently.

They might have spent so much more time together before they got to it, Evey thought. She might have had time to put her thoughts together, somehow, in some magical way that wouldn't ruin everything...

She waited too long to speak. Tangled in the lie she would be hiding under if she let the comment pass by. It wasn't fair. He'd lied to her about so much, she ought to...

"Evey?"

"It doesn't matter," she said quietly, her conscience snatching her heart up with both hands. "I've seen it already."

"What?" the word was a puff of breath on the air. There was something about the quality of the sound that alarmed her. A ragged edge that made her heart sink.

"After-" good god, even now she couldn't say it without flinching, " After I got you on the train I pulled you up, but the mask, it slipped, and I-"

He put his fingers over her lips to get her to stop speaking. She went quiet and waited, eyes wide, as the silence stretched. She could tell his mind was racing, and she could tell it was bad.

"No," he said finally, " no." Just as before, she knew with awful certainty that he was not talking to her. He pushed away from her and sat up. He whispered something to himself that she couldn't understand and moved to get up off the bed. That frightened her more than anything else. A quiet little argument with himself.

"V-" She reached for his arm. It was a mistake. He smacked her hand aside and grabbed her by the shoulders. Hard.

"I was glad to be finished with life," he said in a thick, harsh voice. Introducing her to the fact that she'd pushed him too much, and had him backed up into a place that just might be dangerous. "I was grateful for the end of thinking and feeling." His voice turned horrible on the last word. He was shaking her a little bit now, and he sounded...he sounded like he was in pieces. She had the surreal and scary conviction that she was coming in during the middle of this. V versus the horrible things in V's head.

"I never wanted-" his marvelous voice failed him and she pushed at him, pushed at his chest to get away from that. Get away from having to think about that.

"Stop it, stop it, I don't want to hear this-"

"I never wanted the undiscovered country." His voice was raw and she gritted her teeth to stop herself from crying, hating the tears as they spilled over her cheeks. He pulled her in close to him despite her best efforts. He was rough with her. "I never wanted-" his voice broke and he pressed his face against her neck, trying to calm himself enough for words.

It was curious to be the cause of so much of his suffering, while still being used as his personal talisman against the widening depths of madness. A curious and unpleasant little detail.

He was crying. He was crying on her.

At the sound of him all the fight went out of her. She found herself, somehow, clinging to him instead of pushing him away. She clutched at his shirt as if he would fly apart if she did not hold on to him.

When he continued, his voice was low and almost angry.

"I never wanted to have to feel this..." His voice was muffled against her neck, but she heard him.

Then he lifted his head, and held her face in his hands. She reached up and copied the gesture, surprising him. The skin on his face felt much the same as the skin on his hands. A little more delicate, maybe. It was almost like running her fingers over old lace.

He leaned forward and rested his forehead against hers.

"It would be so much easier if I could hate you," she sighed, stroking the strange whorls and delicate ridges of skin on the side of his face.

He froze at her words, and started to pull away, so she kissed him quick before he could. It was just enough, and when he spoke again his voice melted into heat.

"Oh, god, Evey..."

He crushed her to his chest and kissed her like he would die if he didn't.

She wanted to hate at him, for his rolling, uneven emotional landscape. She wanted not to go along for the ride, for once. She wanted to pull back and hate at him for making her feel too damn much. But he caught his breath, and she could feel that he was shaking, and her flash of resolve melted away like wet tissue.

They pressed their thighs toward one another, between one another. In a scarce handful of moments they were tangled together and desperate, but neither of them were thinking clearly enough to bother fumbling with clothing. He cupped her cheek in his hand, smearing half-forgotten tears back into the light fuzz of her hairline. His hand continued to move, across her scalp, down the back of her neck, fingers rippling over the texture of her spine until they were thwarted by cloth.

He did his best, then, to fuse the two of them into one person. She had seen his strength before. Felt the hard invulnerability beneath his leather gloves in the welts on her skin. She felt it again, and thought, for a moment, that he might actually be able to do it. Push two people together into something else.

It felt fantastic.

Quite clearly, as if reading the word from a favorite book, Evey thought, 'Clothes'.

She started shoving at her pants. V froze for a moment, but when his hand filled with flesh instead of cloth he warmed to the idea and started fumbling with her shirt. It was a delicate thing, as she liked, and he was stalled by little buttons. She kicked free of her pants before he was half through, and her hands, rather naturally, came to search at the front of his trousers.

He started to pant through his teeth, his fingers slipping on the little fastenings while her hands were busy insinuating themselves beneath layers of black cloth. The sound was gritty and cut off entirely as soon as she touched his skin.

His fingers froze and his breathing stopped.

She turned her hand within the small space, stroking his stomach with the backs of her fingers. He made a faint strangled sound and rested his hand over hers, stopping her.

"So calm," he said, his voice rough. "Would that I could be so calm."

"I don't mind a little passionate intensity," Evey said with a smile. He hesitated, as if she'd said something wrong. Then he leaned in until he was breathing the words into her ear.

"'Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer'." As if he was releasing the words from some terrible place. "'Things fall apart, the center cannot hold...'"

Here, see how ugly I am...

She quickly slid her hand low, and the recitation stopped as he choked in shock. She curled her fingers and held him, squeezing gently. He swelled and twitched in her palm.

"My...god..." He managed, seeming stunned by the feeling of being held in her hand. She liked that, she liked the sound of that much better and leaned in to kiss him. He didn't immediately respond to her, being distracted with other things. She bit his lip a little, holding it between her teeth and sucking.

His mouth came alive and his arms pulled tight around her. He even pushed against her hand a little. She rewarded him, hitching her leg up onto his hip and pulling herself close. He hissed in a breath and went still.

"Evey," his voice was thick, " I don't...I can't..." His hand caught her just under her thigh, and when she paused he held her there, trying to get hold of himself.

Surprised and pleased, she squirmed to get closer, until he was pressed against her. He was breathing hard, and he was wet, leaking pre-come onto her skin. He gasped at the contact and she realized with a thrill just how close he was.

"Oh..." His voice was soft with a razor's edge of anxiety. He tensed. Every part of him tensed, yearning towards her. A hot flush of blood warmed her inner thighs, and she stroked him again, knowing...

He moaned deep in his throat as he came, a rough, short noise that sounded as though it must have hurt his throat. His body jerked against her, spurting into her hand, onto her thigh. It went on for a long time, until he was left silent and twitching. When the last twitch left him he lay against her like a dead thing. Almost as though he were terrified of moving, of breaking the moment.

Delicately, she retrieved her hand.

"Have you," her voice caught and she had to clear her throat. "Have you ever done this before?" She tried to be gentle in the asking.

There was no sign, no sound for a moment. Then, his face still pressed tightly against her shoulder, he shook his head a fraction of an inch. If she hadn't been able to feel it she would have had no hope of seeing it, not in full daylight on a clear day.

"I see," she breathed. He wasn't relaxed. His manner was, in fact, as far from relaxed as it was possible to be. He muscles were like steel cords under her hands. She would have bet real money that something horrible was going on inside his head.

Enough...

Evey wiped her sticky fingers on the sheet, and slipped her hands up under the lip of his shirt. There was a thin, stretchy garment he was wearing beneath it. It had an odd, organic quality, and when she wiggled her fingers underneath it, it held her hand snugly up against his skin. She pressed on persistently, until both her arms were around him, touching his bare skin. The flesh was hard and soft at the same time, uneven in texture. Old lace.

Warm, though. Pleasant to be touching the rough skin, no matter how soft a silk shirt could be. She'd shoved his doublet up under his armpits without unfastening it. She wasn't sure how to get it undone, anyway. He let her do as she wished in silence. She felt him, though, felt the tension in his muscles start to drain away. She stroked his back under the cloth, almost petting him. Smoothing the hurt and fear right out. It was only a momentary solution, but he seemed to like it so well, just to be touched...

She did not know about his mind, but his body calmed. Like she was weaving some kind of spell. Breath and warmth and touch and love...

Evey stopped, startled by the matter of fact certainty in her own thoughts.

While she was distracted, V's hand came up and calmly, swiftly unfastened the rest of the buttons on her shirt. She leaned back from him, eyebrows climbing in surprise. Then he snaked his arms around her and pressed their bare torsos together. Evey made a pleased sound at the unexpected thrill of physical satisfaction. V sighed, and she was certain he was feeling it too. She continued to run her hand over his back, and she had to admit she liked it much better.

He inhaled in a way that made her think he was savouring the way she smelled. His breath was warm on her skin. He pressed his lips to the base of her neck, just at the point where her shoulder began. One kiss, and then his breath spread over her face as he pulled back.

"You deserve better," He said sadly.

"Then kiss me somewhere else," Evey said, lifting the words right out of the air like they were waiting for her. For a moment there was only his breathing, and hers. Then he touched her face.

"Ah," he sighed. His other hand slid low, hesitating at the waistband of her underwear. Silently, she pressed her hip against his palm. He paused, processing her consent. Then his thumb slipped underneath the scrap of cloth and pulled it away from her skin. She wriggled against him as he parted her from the last of her clothing, and he made an interesting noise at the stimulation.

He placed a hand on her hip and pressed her back onto the bed, raising himself above her. She heard one of the books slide to the floor with a sigh and a thump. She ran her hands up his chest, pleased at the new angle. He liked the sensation well enough to remove his doublet and shirt to give her more freedom. She thought he might have torn the cloth trying to get out of it.

He kissed her, leaning down over her, his mouth moving urgently. The cloth of his trousers was textured and rubbed at her in a wonderful way. She parted her legs, her knees coming up on either side of him. She arched her back, trying to urge him closer to her.

He made a soft, choked sound into her mouth and pulled back a little, trailing his lips over her chin, tracing a path down the front of her throat.

The sensation was delicate, and when he turned his head at the last moment and bit her lightly on the shoulder, she nearly jumped out of her skin. He seemed to like giving attention to areas of her body she'd had no idea could be sexual, much less that she would enjoy it. He lingered over the line of her collarbone, touching with hands and mouth, pressing his lips to the thin skin there until she was nearly out of her mind. Then he moved down and found the under curve of her breasts, just where they began to rise from her torso, and paused there for a time, running his rough hands lightly over her nipples, tilting his head so he could get a better angle with his tongue.

She could feel then, what she hadn't had the wits to notice earlier. The wig had come off with his shirt. He had less hair than she did. Just like her.

Evey moved quickly, sliding her hand up his neck, spreading her fingers over the back of his head.

He moaned against her skin, and she felt the vibration of it travel along her ribcage. She had a sharp urge to pull him closer, but he caught her hand before she could do anything else, and pressed his lips to her palm. He held it curled against his face for a moment, as if urging restraint. Then he leaned down and kissed her right at the jut of her hipbone.

She had a wild thought...surely he didn't know to...

She wondered what he might have on his bookshelves that she hadn't seen.

V scooted lower, smoothing his hands over her, urging her legs further apart. He turned his head and bit her on the soft skin of her inner thigh.

Evey gasped, and V 'hmm'ed from his place between her legs, sounding pleased.

He kissed her, licked her lightly in a way that seemed calculated to drive her mad. She reached down blindly with both hands to curl around his head as he continued. He moaned again at the touch, and she felt the sound again, vibrating through her.

Evey choked, lifting her hips to him. He kissed her thoroughly, until she was sweating and gasping and pleading with him. Until she clawed all the pillows off the bed. He took his time, until finally he lifted himself away from her, rising up between her legs as she cried out for him to do something, anything, or she'd fly out of her skin.

He touched her gently, finding his way and she lifted her hips, helping him. He slid inside her, one smooth thrust. She came almost immediately, with that first shock of contact. He held still as she did, listening to her, feeling her. When she could think again, she listened to him breathing hard through his mouth. As if just the fact of her climax was too arousing to bear.

"Have I ever seen true beauty till this night?" he rasped into the darkness, so quietly she could barely hear him. He pushed into her again with a little shudder of pleasure. Once, and then again. He stiffened against her with a little moan of joy that was thrilling to the ears.

Evey took a moment, and caught her breath, stroking her hands up his arms. Half a laugh of pure relief slipped by her lips.

She heard him above her, heard a breathless half-laugh in response, and shut her eyes, grinning like an idiot.

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"Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer; things fall apart; the center cannot hold..."-William Butler Yeats

"Have I ever seen true beauty till this night?"-William Shakespeare, _Romeo and Juliet_


	6. Chapter 6

Resurrection Blues

Ch 6

_"...the dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had."-Gary Jules, Mad World_

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V did not pull away from her right away. Instead, he rested himself on top of her, letting her feel the solidity of his body without squishing her. He remained inside her as if reluctant to separate himself. After a moment of surprise, Evey felt oddly touched by the implied sentiment behind the action. She liked it enormously. It seemed to...encourage affection.

V lifted his head and kissed the corner of her lips with a warm, human mouth.

"Evey," he whispered to the soft skin of her cheek. She felt his eyes close, the flutter of his eyelid on the side of her face. "Thank you."

Surprised again. People didn't do that, did they?

When he pulled away he did it slowly, lowering himself to the bed, gently urging her to turn in his arms so they might remain close. Smiling slightly, Evey snaked a hand up around him and started trailing her fingers over his back. He made a small noise as she did.

It was funny, her heart reacted to the sound like a cello to a bow. It gave a low thrum, and she broke out in goose pimples. She continued to lay hands on him, pulling her hand across his skin in long strokes. He lay compliant under her touch, but she got the distinct impression he was tightly controlling himself. Now and then a little gasp slipped through, inadequately muffled without a mask.

"Is this all right?" Evey asked softly, half-serious and feeling rather charmed by how much he seemed to enjoy just being touched by her.

He stirred a little, as if it took real effort to gather his thoughts enough to speak.

"Yes," he sighed, and let slip a little half-laugh. "I've never been touched like this."

Evey's eyebrows lifted high as her first thought was that he was talking about his lack of...intimate experience. She was surprised that he would bring it up so casually, but when she thought about it a moment, something awful occurred to her.

She'd read the diary with the red cover. She'd read almost all the way through it, and something occurred to her. What was it that woman had written...'The subject in room five claims he no longer remembers who he is or where he is from'...

Evey remembered what V's reflection of Larkhill had felt like. No touch there that wasn't specifically intended to hurt or humiliate. If he'd had no memory left...

Evey pursed her lips. It must have been like being born there. Larkhill first, and then here, at the Shadow gallery, alone. Twenty years, he'd said. Christ, twenty years.

With a queasy shift of perspective she wondered if perhaps V had been a bit kinder to her than he had to be, in that looking-glass version of Larkhill he'd put her in. With all the hell she'd been through, she'd had memories of a better life. He'd had nothing. Only hell, always hell.

"Never?" she asked softly, wanting to clarify. There was an edge to her voice that she tried to hide.

"Nothing save the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," V replied, sounding warm and comfortable.

Good god, she thought, and had the wits not to say what she was thinking. Instead she slid her hand up the back of his neck, over the top of his head

He made a low sound in the back of his throat and sagged into the bed. Her heart reacted strangely again, seeming to object to the small space it was confined in.

"Oh," she said as her chest constricted tightly. His fingers came up, touching her mouth, tracing the curve of her lower lip.

"Heaven," he sighed. His fingers splayed over her cheek. "Heaven." He laughed, rich with comfort and the heady wine of a gentle hand on his skin. "I never would have believed it."

"Is that what you think?" Evey asked, half serious. It felt so strange to be talking to him, knowing he didn't have his mask on. His voice sounded different. She slid her hand back down his neck, rubbing gently at his shoulder.

He made a little 'hmmm' noise, sounding relaxed and pleased.

"'I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams,'" he said. She felt him shift on the bed, as if propping his head up on his hand. The other hand trailed lightly over her shoulder and down over her ribcage.

"Tell me Evey," V said thoughtfully, "Are you hungry?" Evey frowned. "Don't think about it, just answer," V urged quickly.

"No," she said, lifting her eyebrow . He sounded like he did when he had something reasoned out in his head and was trying to lead her down the path to the right conclusion.

"Thirsty?"

"No, why?" Evey asked, bemused.

"A moment, mademoiselle. Did you need to use the facilities?" He continued on.

"The-" the loo? Evey laughed, just a breath. "Well, now that you mention it, I do need to clean up a bit."

V hesitated in a way that left it very obvious that he was embarrassed.

"Ah. Yes...of course you do." He paused. "However, that's not what I meant."

"I'm not sure where you're going with this."

"Think, Evey. You've been in this bed for more than three days. Isn't it strange that you want for nothing?"

Evey frowned. She wasn't hungry, not at all.

"You didn't-?" She said sharply.

"I confess, I tried to see that you were hydrated," said V, running his fingers lightly over the bandage in the crook of her arm, "But I discovered very quickly that it wasn't necessary."

"That's...very strange," she admitted. "What about you?" Evey asked, pushing herself up to a sitting position, her curiosity piqued. V hesitated.

"I often go without meals when I have something pressing that needs to be done," V said with deliberate casualness.

Evey did a quick mental translation.

"You haven't eaten in three days?" She said, startled. "V..."

V put his hand on her arm, as if urging her to be calm.

"Evey," he soothed, "believe me, when I have gone without in the past it has been unavoidable that I do so. Every time I felt the lack. Not today. I am not hungry." V explained, laying the paving stones down ahead of her.

Evey frowned, looking away, thinking.

"If there was food in front of you, do you think you could eat it?" She asked.

"I believe so," V said slowly, as if considering the merits of biscuits or pie. "Could you?"

"Yes," Evey said, "But, it's like I don't...need anything."

"Exactly," V replied, pushing himself up off the bed.

"What does it mean?" she asked.

"At the very least it means we are overdue for some tea," V said smoothly, surprising her into laughter.

"As for the rest, I have an idea." V shifted on the bed. "I'd like your help with an experiment of sorts."

Evey smiled with good-natured suspicion, suddenly feeling terribly fond of him.

"All right," she squirmed a little, feeling the dampness in between her thighs. "I really do need to visit the loo, though." She found his face in the dark with her hand, leaned forward and planted a gentle kiss on his lips.

He sighed deeply as she pulled away.

"Should I...get the light, then?" She asked him.

There was no response, and Evey tensed despite herself. She knew quite well why V always kept the place filled with music. Silence in the depths could be oppressive.

"I would rather you didn't," V said softly, sounding uncomfortable.

Evey tilted her head and looked into darkness, something cold clenching her stomach.

"Do you think anything I'd see would be more horrible than living through some of the things you've already done?" Evey asked bluntly.

V caught his breath. He said nothing, but there was a sound as if he was withdrawing a little. Evey thought suddenly that she might have been a little too harsh. She'd had a lot stripped away, at V's hands. Sometimes it was hard to remember to be kind. Especially to him. So much for heaven, she thought with a twinge.

After a moment, Evey heard movement on the bed, and with a thrill of alarm she realized he was**leaving**.

"Wait," she said, startled, reaching for him. He fended her off with an outstretched hand.

"Please," he said quietly. "You're right, I'm sorry, I never should have-"

"I'm here, V," Evey interrupted him sharply. "This happened." Her voice went quiet. "I'm glad this happened."

"It would be easier if you hated me," V replied in that voice, that soft voice that she could never stand against. Taking the words right from her lips and offering them to her on a bed of roses. He thought about what she said, Evey realized. He thought about every little thing she said.

Words. Words always retain their power.

"It would be," Evey said honestly, her ears ringing strangely, "but I can't."

She leaned toward him. She could feel the heat coming off his skin.

"My father had a daughter loved a man," she said quietly. V hissed in a sharp breath, knowing. "As it might be..." she narrowed her eyes and her voice went very soft, "...perhaps, were I a woman..." Evey stopped, disquieted, looking down into darkness so thick it was pressing at her eyes.

"I saw your face. I'd like to see it again. Not the idea, the man. An idea doesn't bleed, it doesn't feel pain," she hesitated, then added delicately, "and it cannot love."

V made a soft, painful-sounding noise in the dark. There was a long silence.

"The light," he managed, finally. "If you wish."

Evey let out a breath. She turned on the bed, fumbling for where she remembered the light, but they'd knocked it on the floor sometime in the duration and it took eons to find it. By the time she had it in her hands she was expecting it to be broken, and V was breathing in short, sharp pants that made her think he was half a hair away from bolting.

She felt carefully at the base for the switch. Her hands were shaking. This was so important, god, this was so important...

The light flicked on cheerfully, obediently under her fumbling fingers. She stared down at it for a heartbeat in surprise. Then she lifted her head and looked at V.

He wasn't quite facing her. He was perched on the very edge of the bed. When she came around to the side she could see he had his eyes closed.

It was, she had to admit, pretty awful. Not so sad and terrible as it had been the first time. Evey had frozen in horror when it had happened. The smiling face had slipped, leaving a weary, bloodied one in its place. I loved you, the face seemed to say. She'd ended up cradling his head in her lap, bent over his face, crying.

This face was alive. Eyes shut, not staring. Wasn't bloody. Soft and real and...frightened?

Evey leaned close. He stiffened when she pressed her cheek against his. When she pulled back a little his eyes were open. Blue. She kissed him on the mouth, knowing he was watching her. He made a soft sound against her lips, raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

He grabbed her and yanked her away from him, startling her.

"What's wrong?" Evey asked, tensing. His eyes were searching her face almost franticly. It was unfamiliar, and she suddenly wanted him to move, or speak, something so she would **know**...

His hands darted up and cupped her face, as if she might try to escape. The tilt of his head and the speed of his hands reassured her with the familiar, and she relaxed.

"Heaven," he said finally, his voice lifting towards wonder. It was mesmerizing; That voice and that face, together. Here was a man. A man, not an idea. He had lovely eyes.

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"...slings and arrows of outrageous fortune..."-Shakespeare, _ Hamlet_

" I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams."-Shakespeare, _Hamlet_

"My father had a daughter loved a man, as it might be, perhaps, were I a woman, I would your lordship."-Viola, _Twelfth night,_Shakespeare


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